The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) is doing course correction admitting that its second stage forecast has also proved to be off the mark.
IMD had forecast that the Long Period Average forecast of the summer monsoon would be 96 per cent on target (with a margin of error of four per cent) but rainfall over the four geographical regions of the north-west, central, southern peninsula and east and north-east India have been lower than anticipated.
With acreage of coarse cereals and pulses expected to be much less this year, the Centre plans to dip in and utilize Rs4524 crore under the National Disaster Relief Fund to meet any contingency.
Seventy five per cent of the total unallocated power available for the northern region is being made available to Punjab, Haryana and UP so that the yield of rice is not adversely affected.
IMD sources point out that the north east region, north Bihar and northern Bengal have received heavy rainfall and will continue to receive heavy rainfall.
Centre now pins hopes on August rains
Though the Centre is pinning its hopes on August rains, the loss so far of about 80 lakh hectares of sowing area coupled with the expected cascading effect on consumer prices and fodder shortage for livestock have set the alarm bells ringing.
A warning note on a less-than-normal monsoon had been sounded by some international agencies in March-April itself. The agencies had predicted that the monsoon could fail in the north-western parts while also predicting that rainfall would be poor, said sources.
The agriculture ministry was relying more on the Indian Meteorological Department’s (IMD) second stage forecast made on June 22 which insisted that “rainfall over the entire monsoon season would be normal at 96 per cent of LPA (long-period average) with model error of plus or minus of 4 per cent.”
However, the PMO stated on Monday, “This is now reportedly likely to be around the lower-end of the range. The cumulative rainfall for the period from June 1 to July 15 is 22 per cent less than LPA.”
The Centre stated that there is sufficient availability of all seeds, inclu-ding coarse cereals pulses and also of fodder crops and these will be made available to the states.